


Autumn

by HPendle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood Friends, Drabbles, Guilty Pleasures, Herbologist Neville Longbottom, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Marriage, Romance, Self Prompt, Tags Subject to Change, Things coming full circle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26765965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HPendle/pseuds/HPendle
Summary: A collection of autumn-inspired drabbles & ficlets for October.
Relationships: Hannah Abbott/Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	1. music

**Author's Note:**

> This writer does not own these characters. Someone else does, but she's been acting out on the Internet, so this writer has decided to play with them a little bit (never for profit and never claiming them as her own).
> 
> This writer also does not own any of the music referenced to in this particular drabble. Extra points are awarded to the reader who comments on them.

Hermione told him that she only visited him for his record collection. It was a good thing that he would chuckle at that comment, taking it as a joke, because she was lying. The real reason why she would spend six days of the week waiting for the day they'd meet in his living room was so that she could quietly admire how his form came to life and his face was so animated, his hands gesticulating gracefully as he talked about the unlikely link between David Bowie and Carly Simon, raved about _Blood Money_ , or compared Oasis and Blurs to the skiffle bands of the 50s and 60s.

Then there were the moment those elegant fingers pick a record, the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile every time he knelt down and produced a vinyl, a CD, anything obscure and unlike anything she'd ever listen to out of her own volition.

"You'd like this," he would say and hand her the record. She made sure every time she took them to _accidentally_ brush hands, and every time she felt electricity run through the tips of her fingers when they met the soft skin of his hands.

Today, it was her turn to make a suggestion. "You'll like this," she smiled at him. He chuckled at the cover - a black-and-white photography of a woman with piercing eyes, lying on the floor with her face partly obscured by a guitar's headstock and neck.

"I know what I like, Granger, and it's not _nouvelle chanson_."

He had been wrong. She noticed the hitch in his breath bobbing in his throat and his eyes misting during the first track. What she didn't notice - she was too busy with his hands on her waist and his lips suddenly on hers - was that he was reacting to the way her lips parted and her pupils dilated every time she had stopped to admire him for the past year and a half.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This writer is experiencing a bit of a block with her current long fic & other planned pieces. She thought it might be a good idea to buckle down and produce one of these a day to ease up on the block and warm up for NaNoWriMo.
> 
> If you have an idea for a prompt, do let me know. Any and every comment is welcome and much appreciated.
> 
> Thank you for your time! I hope you enjoy this.


	2. harvest

If you plied Hannah Longbottom with enough alcohol, which was exactly two glasses of red wine and a shot of Ogden's, she would tell you that Magibotanists and Herbologists were "farmers with a wand, essentially".

That first year, the young bride rued her husband's profession because of the constant dirt: tacky smears of mud over the wooden floors of their home, the perennial crust of soil in the soles of Neville's boots and wellies, the thin black line under his fingernails that he could never seem to scrub off. It made her loathe the spring, when he brought to bed the smell of sweat and petrichor after long days in the greenhouses and the field surrounding their cottage. She felt a twinge of guilt because of how happy she'd felt upon learning his mastery required him to travel for a month as the summer ended.

Neville came back the evening of the day the weather turned, his wife fast asleep in a starfish position on their pristine bed.

He was waiting for her in the kitchen the next morning, all smiles under the dark undereye circles that come with a fitful night on the sofa. "Close your eyes and hold out your hands," he said. She obliged with ginger steps and squeezing his hands at the slightest bump under her feet, as they walked through the back door.

" _Revelio_!"

Hannah gasped loudly when she saw the row of trees and patches behind their cottage: fat little plums and figs and crab apples like round jewels hanging heavily from their trees, varieties of pumpkins and squash surrounded with their vines all curlicued and leaves broad, and her husband standing before pots lush with poppies and blackberry bushes.

"What do you think?" he asked as he placed a crown of red poppies and sprigs of dry wheat on her hair. 

She couldn't stop smiling. "Well, for starters, that we'll always have jam in this house … "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This writer misses poppies something fierce. They're a lovely sight. But I did receive an etrog today, though. Chag sameach to those of you celebrating Sukkot!
> 
> Please feed me comments, for I have enough figs and mandarines in my fridge. Do wear a mask if you need to face the outside world x


	3. leaves

I.

The lull in the autumn rain would give Cokeworth a few days of crisp and dry weather. Lily, a spring child that whinged about the kind of weather that had her parents insisting she wear her coat, loved that bit of the month.

Their game was simple: gather fallen leaves into a pile in front of the swings and jump onto them. Every day the weather was good they would race down to the playground. Sev would gather leaves the quickest, but Lily made sure the pile was neat and tidy. Sev would gather all of the bravado a ten-year-old could muster and stand on the swing's seat before leaping into the air, and Lily would try to make him linger in the air a little longer. It would go on until they were red-faced and their bellies ached from laughing, around the time Tuney would call her younger sister in for tea.

"Come on, Mummy will be cross if we're not in before it gets dark," Lily said as they skipped down the road to the Evanses, hand in hand.

He wouldn't have minded if Doreen Evans had never sent him home with a full belly and something extra to take back home. His heart was that full.

II.

It was the first sick day he had ever taken.

The Evans' headstone, Severus noted, was in bad shape. It had never been the case when Lily was alive. He frowned deeply as he cleared the twigs and weeds from around it, quietly blasting away the mouldy remains of a mouldy posy the wind must have blown that way. As he set his posy on their now clean grave, he wished he had been able to give them those flowers - or anything, really, that could show how grateful he was for having fed and loved him - when they still lived.

But of course, the Potters' graves were pristine and full of tributes, on the anniversary of their deaths. He chuckled darkly when he noticed from afar that there was no space for his own. An idea: he transfigured the small posy of white roses into a small pile of leaves, red and orange and yellow and green. Carefully, he gathered them into a small mound just next to the headstone and murmured an incantation to preserve the pile that way. He left with wet cheeks in spite of the crisp and dry weather.

It would be the only sick day he would ever take.

III.

"What was my Nanny Lily like?"

"She was a loyal, not afraid - "

"I know that," Albus rolled his eyes. "All the books say the same things about her. _Lily Potter, brave and loyal, a true Gryffindor_. I meant what was she like when she was a kid? Dad doesn't remember, obviously, and I don't trust the other Albus. But you were friends with my nan when you were kids, weren't you?"

Uncle Sev closed his book and stared at the young boy in front of him. Albus was all of ten, lonely with an older brother in Hogwarts and a younger sister that had little in common with him.

_He's been begging to spend some time with you_ , Potter said. _It's so nice out, you could take him to the park_ , Ginevra said. 

He resolved that if he had to put up with Potter's gobby Mini-Me, he would have to start charging them baby-sitting fees.

"She wasn't always brave, young Albus. She was terrified of large dogs, merpeople, and spiders." Albus eyes widened and Uncle Sev chuckled. "In fact, she was also scared to try to do this - " he stood up and quietly conjured a pile of dry leaves. It was a terrible idea, what with his bad leg and his fifty-six years of age, but he still stood on the swing and leapt.

Albus cheered loudly for Uncle Sev when he hovered over the pile for a couple of seconds before crash-landing on it. The boy scrambled up to try it, whooping loudly in mid-air, never noticing Uncle Sev was the one making him float. They took turns jumping from the swing until their faces were red and Uncle Sev's wristwatch marked nearly 6 PM.

"Come on now, Albus. Your mother will have my head if I don't take you back before it gets dark."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The format of this drabble was inspired by the most beautifully heartbreaking "Four Times Lucius Hugged Severus and One Time Severus Hugged Lucius", by RubyLipsStarryEyes, which you can find here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26783698
> 
> This writer welcomes your comments and send you her love, from a place too summer-y for crunchy leaves at the moment.
> 
> Thank you for your time!


	4. pumpkin

It was all Harry Potter's fault. If Saint Potter hadn't gone and come back from the dead in the eleventh hour, won the war, backed Kingsley Shacklebolt for Prime Minister, and encourage the integration of Muggle-borns and their families into the fabric of magical society, he wouldn't be in the predicament he was currently finding himself in.

He tapped his Chelsea boot-cladden foot impatiently as he stood in the queue. If it hadn't been for his wife, gods rest her soul, he would have been content to spend the rest of his life not really paying any attention to the Muggles. But no, the lady would insist and would plead and though he never cared much for things like _televisions_ and _dishwashers_ , he had to admit that things like pens and the Internet had become necessities.

Thanks to the previous administrations pushing that hideously cartoonish version of wizarding life upon their society, he was sick to the back teeth of them. They were everywhere: juiced, as pasty filling, in dessert, for breakfast. He had breathed a sigh of relief when his son spat out his first meal of puréed pumpkin because it meant he wouldn't have to deal with it in any form, digested or otherwise.

Of course he turned up his nose when they spent an American holiday with his wife's Muggle friends and he was served a slice of the bloody cucurbita in the form of pie. But when wifey insisted, hubby obliged. The only bad thing about that dessert was having to swallow his pride to ask for a second helping and possibly, the recipe. Eventually, as soon as the calendar marked September, he would see his efforts focusing into hunting down for the seasonal treat.

He glanced at his wristwatch and pursed his lips. It was taking unacceptably long. He briefly considered hexing the person in charge of the establishment or better yet, buying them out of spite, but he just tutted instead. It would come. He could wait - not patiently, but he could wait.

Oh, he had access to recipes and ingredients, but it had never been the Malfoy way to do things oneself. Besides, crossing into Muggle London to acquire the concoction was his own way of sticking it to Saint Potter (or so he tried to convince himself). And it made him feel like he was keeping a secret the likes of which could revolutionise Diagon Alley, but only he was privy to.

"One Venti pumpkin spice latte and one almond croissant to go for Diego!" 

It helped that the baristas never got Draco's name right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This writer was never one for going to a pumpkin patch, but she could be lured to one with the promise of a PSL. She can carve the living lights out of a pumpkin, though.
> 
> I'll appreciate your reviews, if you feel inclined to leave one. I hope you're well, and if you can and feel the craving for some pie, try to make your own pumpkin purée from scratch - easier, cheaper, better for you. x


End file.
